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A Burmese Tug of Words

By Swe Win July 6, 2012 11:35 amJuly 6, 2012 11:35 am

Library of CongressMandalay, Burma, in 1895 during British colonial rule.

YANGON, Myanmar — Once again a government body here has chided Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for calling the country Burma during her trips to Thailand and Europe. Say Myanmar, she was told, as is called for by the 2008 Constitution.

This tug of words has been going on for decades. To some it matters because it symbolizes the differences between the generals who have long ruled the country and those who resist them, but it’s also kind of pointless. The truth is neither name is good enough.

Myanmar is a direct pronunciation in English of the country’s official Burmese name Myanma — meaning fast and strong people — which dates back to the 12th century. During British colonial rule, from 1885 to 1948, the country was known as Burma (from the Burmese Bamar). During the four decades after independence, a funny situation developed: though in Burmese the country’s name reverted to Myanmar (to mark a break from the colonial period), in English the country was called the Union of Burma and then, after 1974, the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma.

Burma only became Myanmar in English, too, by order of the military rulers in 1989, a year after a crackdown on a democratic uprising. Eager to cast themselves as true nationalists, the generals passed the Adaptation of Expression Law, amending all English names in conformity with Burmese pronunciation. Rangoon became Yangon, and the central coastal town Moulmein, where begins Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Mandalay,”becameMawlamyine.

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Such shifts aren’t unusual: many states change names, especially at decolonialization or after regime changes — from Zaire to Congo, Bombay to Mumbai, Southern Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. In this case, though, the shift did come a bit late and so seems under-motivated. Also, of course, it was politically driven — a way for the generals to distinguish themselves from not only the British occupiers but also the prodemocracy opposition: Aung San Suu Kyi may be the daughter of an independence leader who helped oust the British from the country, but she married a British national.

Which is precisely the reason the Burmese opposition and its supporters, like the U.S. and British governments, have continued to say Burma. At least until recently. The West’s greater openness to Myanmar — and its natural resources — recently has put some in an awkward position. On her visit here last December, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, avoided using Burma for fear that she might irk her counterparts in Naypyidaw. (Still, she managed not to use Myanmar.)

Not that Burma is a very good name anyway. In addition to its colonial taint, it has an exclusionary quality. As the generals have pointed out, whereas in conversations in Burmese today Myanmar encompasses the country’s eight major ethnic groups and 100 ethnic nationalities, Burma technically represents only the Bamar ethnic majority, or approximately 37 million of the country’s 55 million people. But that, too, is largely a new problem: before this question of vocabulary got hijacked by politics, both names were used almost interchangeably in the Burmese language. It’s just that Myanmar had a more literary and ceremonial quality and Burma a more colloquial usage.

Now most ordinary Burmese pause before saying our country’s name in English. I adapt to my listeners. I try to use Burma — and Rangoon and Moulmein — because I want to mark my opposition to the military and their cronies, and also because I like history. But out of respect for elderly people whose preferences I don’t know, I’ll say “our country.”

With the younger generation, which grew up never having used the word Burma, I’m careful, too: I don’t want them to think that at age 34 I’m already out of touch with reality. So in English I shift between Burma and Myanmar. In Burmese, though, I use Bamar only to refer to the majority ethnic group and say Myanmar to mean the whole country.

What else could one say? This week, a local newspaper editor suggested on his Facebook page using the word “Myanmbamar.” But what kind of adjective would that turn into? Whatever you do, please don’t call us “Myanmarese.” That simply sounds too ugly.

Correction: July 6, 2012A previous version of this post misspelled Mandalay in the photo caption.